Tonight Methuen’s City Council will vote on the bond authorization to allow us to move forward with the renovation and expansion of Methuen High School. This process began in 2006, when the City of Methuen filed a “Statement of Interest” with the Massachusetts School Building Authority”. That Statement of Interest was approved unanimously by both the School Committee and the City Council. Since that time we have put together a Building Committee, formulated our educational plan, hired an Owners Project Manager, got approval from the M.S.B.A. for Feasibility/Schematic Design, hired an architect, and had City Council approve the funding necessary to complete schematic design, which was a $2 million dollar bond authorization for that phase, reimbursed at a 61.26% rate by the M.S.B.A.

Our Building Committee has submitted our schematic design plans to the M.S.B.A and received approval to move forward with the full project. That approval came on May 26th. Tonight we will ask the Methuen City Council to vote on the full project and approve our finance plan for Methuen High School. That plan does NOT require a debt exclusion, and will be funded in an innovative way that minimizes the impacts to Methuen taxpayers and takes advantage of our financial stability. I have attached the video presentation I made at Mann’s Orchard on the finance plan, as well as the video we submitted in 2006 in support of our Statement of Interest. I have also attached Arthur Nicholson’s presentation on the educational issues involved in this project. The M.S.B.A. will reimburse Methuen at a rate of 68.84% for the project.